Québec Approves Major Permit for Northern Pass Transmission Line

NPT on Track to Deliver Clean Energy to New England Two Years Ahead of Competition

The Northern Pass Transmission (NPT) project has taken another significant step forward in the permitting process, this time on the Canadian side of the border. The Province of Québec announced today that it has granted Hydro-Québec (HQ) a permit to construct the hydroelectric transmission line that will connect with the NPT project at the U.S. border. The permitting process in Québec concludes after two years of review.

This milestone sets Northern Pass apart as the most advanced clean energy project in New England, as it is a full two years ahead of other proposals in the Massachusetts RFP process.

The Provincial Permit is necessary for any U.S. project seeking to connect a new transmission line to a Canadian energy source, and must now be formally approved at the federal level. In the U.S., NPT has already been awarded a Presidential Permit, allowing the project to connect to the HQ system at the international border.

NPT is in the final stages of permitting, has formal contracts with suppliers and a Project Labor Agreement with construction managers and labor unions. Construction of NPT is expected to begin in the spring of 2018.

The Québec government has granted the authorizations needed to carry out the Québec–New Hampshire interconnection project, which calls for the construction of a 320-kV direct-current transmission line about 80 km long that will be extended into the U.S. to connect Des Cantons substation in Val-Joli to Franklin substation in southern New Hampshire.

“Today marks a major milestone, adding one more key authorization to those that have already been granted on both sides of the border, and moving us closer to proceed with the Québec–New Hampshire and Northern Pass Transmission projects,” said Éric Martel, President and Chief Executive Officer of Hydro-Québec. “I would like to thank our community partners, with whom we’ve been working closely, as well as the Québec government, which has supported us in our initiatives to grow our exports.”